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The sergeant stationed just west of Baghdad was once again recounting the dangers of being on the front line - sometimes with dark humor. He referred to how the "muj" (mujahideen or insurgents) were the gang that couldn't shoot straight, but still represented a considerable threat. "They're horrible shots," he wrote in an e-mail to his family, "but every once in awhile they get lucky. We lost another Marine the other day." This is the first war in which American GIs and military families can communicate freely and in real time via e-mail and cellphone, while gathering endless amounts of...

Soldiers that were severely wounded, lost limbs, but are going back to Iraq

WASHINGTON (AP)-U.S. military guards discovered a 600-foot tunnel-dug with makeshift tools-leading out of the main prison facility for detainees in Iraq before anyone had the opportunity to escape, officials said Friday.

The Kentucky National Guardsmen were outnumbered and under heavy gunfire when they counterattacked Iraqi insurgents who ambushed a coalition convoy southeast of Baghdad. A 30-minute firefight ensued on a Sunday morning, pitting 10 guardsmen against dozens of insurgents. When the shooting ended, 26 guerrillas lay dead and another was mortally wounded, while six others were wounded and another was captured unharmed. The guardsmen didn't go unscathed. Three members of the military police unit were wounded and later transported for medical treatment in Germany, where they are recovering. "It was crazy," recalled Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester. "Adrenaline pumping, you didn't have...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 22, 2005 — National Guard soldiers from the Richmond, Ky.-based 617th Military Police Company were still reminiscing today about the extraordinary battle they fought on Sunday, when dozens of Iraqi insurgents ambushed a U.S. patrol — touching off one of the fiercest battles in Iraq since the fight for Fallujah last fall. But what is more extraordinary is who the U.S. soldiers are — a shoe store manager, hotel worker, printing press operator and several students. The firefight serves as a reminder of how citizen-soldiers are shouldering much of the burden in Iraq. Of the U.S. forces...

A Black Hawk helicopter pilot had a surprise visit four days before Christmas, receiving an Army Commendation Medal, Air Medal and promotion to major. Maj. Ladda “Tammy” Duckworth, of the Illinois National Guard’s 1-106th Aviation, is recuperating from injuries at Walter Reed Army Medical Center after a rocket-propelled grenade hit the helicopter she was piloting in Iraq Nov. 12. “I hope this is the worst thing that happens to anyone in the 106th during this deployment,” said Duckworth. “This is not so bad, there is always somebody worse off than you are. I’m just glad it was me and not...

Healing hands welcomed home(staff photo by Steven Georges) LOS ALAMITOS — As a rifleman in Somalia and a sniper protecting former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Army Spc. Salvador Romo had empathy for the wounded soldiers he helped treat at a U.S. Army hospital in Germany. ***************************************************** Healing hands welcomed homeMembers of 349th General Hospital cared for service members hurt in Iraq.By David RogersStaff writerLOS ALAMITOS — As a rifleman in Somalia and a sniper protecting former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Army Spc. Salvador Romo had empathy for the wounded soldiers he helped treat at a U.S. Army hospital in Germany....

U.S. General Says Met Israeli Interrogator in Iraq LONDON (Reuters) - The U.S. general who was in charge of Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison said on Saturday she had met an Israeli interrogator in Iraq, a controversial allegation likely to irritate many in the Arab world. A U.S. military spokesman in Washington said he had no information and an Israeli official denied Israel was involved. Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski, who was responsible for military police guarding all Iraqi jails at the time prisoners were abused by U.S. troops there, told the BBC she met the Israeli at a Baghdad interrogation center....

<p>May 13, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - Shocking shots of sexcapades involving Pfc. Lynndie England were among the hundreds of X-rated photos and videos from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal shown to lawmakers in a top-secret Capitol conference room yesterday.</p> <p>"She was having sex with numerous partners. It appeared to be consensual," said a lawmaker who saw the photos.</p>

Pentagon possesses three disks of photos, one of which includes some brief video clips. Many of the photos are redundant, and some have little to do with Iraqi detainees but show sex between U.S. soldiers... Pentagon officials prevailed at least temporarily in their insistence that the administration not immediately release the images, which include the forced masturbation of a detainee...

It sounds like a Sci-Fi movie conceived in the mind of Betty Friedan: Misogynist Muslim males in an Iraqi prison under the control of a female general are leashed like dogs for the amusement of female guards during a game of carnal hijinks -- "2004: A Sexual Space Odyssey." What once was a men-are-dogs satirical cartoon in feminist magazines is now a photo on the front page of newspapers. Will Hillary Clinton, who sits on the Senate Committee on Armed Services set to browbeat Donald Rumsfeld today, apologize for the photo of the female guard leashing a Muslim male? Where...

<p>Jessica Lynch has become a motivational speaker.</p> <p>The slight blonde who went from broken prisoner of war and national hero to an instant and controversial celebrity has taken on a new public identity, offering her story in a presentation titled "Survival is a Choice."</p>

Hours after a bomb exploded in front of Army Staff Sgt. Kimberley Fahnestock Voelz in Iraq, she died in a military hospital in the arms of her husband. Voelz's death Sunday was caused by the explosion of a bomb she was defusing. The blast nearly tore off her left leg and filled her body with shrapnel. Only the quick action of a fellow soldier, who applied a tourniquet to her injured leg, kept her from dying on the spot. From Our Advertiser As Voelz, 27, was being taken to the hospital, her husband, Staff Sgt. Max Voelz, who was stationed...

CAMP UDAIRI, Kuwait -- A female Stryker brigade soldier reported she was raped late Friday or early Saturday at this desert post about 10 miles south of the Iraqi border, brigade officials said Saturday. Detectives with the Army's Criminal Investigation Division taped off the area around a cargo container next to the shower trailer where the alleged assault occurred. "A 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division female soldier has allegedly been sexually assaulted at Camp Udairi. The soldier is being provided with medical care and emotional support," spokesman Lt. Col. Joseph Piek said in a statement. "The incident is under investigation,"...

I've got a serious question that I need some Freeper help with. I know that in World War II women were able to serve separately from men in the Armed Forces in such services as the WACS and the WAVES. Are there any such women's only corps in our services today? This is an honest question. I have wanted badly to serve my country, but I have almost always felt that women's roles in the military should not be a soldiers but as equally important nurses, intelligence officers, and other support staff. ANY FEMALE SOLDIERS OR VETS READING THIS PLEASE...